Wednesday, June 1, 2011

One of the things I really appreciate about the upcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Gamefrom Goodman Games is the way that even its artwork signals that this isn't just another heroic fantasy RPG, like so many others. In fact, judging from this illustration by Doug Kovacs, I'm not sure "heroic" is an appropriate adjective at all.

There are no Silver Age heroes to be found here, just a blood-drenched warrior, a creepy warlock, a bad-ass battle nun, and a shifty-looking dwarf with an eye patch. Notice, too, that they have torches -- torches. From where I'm sitting, this is awesome stuff and clearly distinct from what WotC and Paizo are doing these days. Whether there's actually a demand for this kind of thing outside our little echo chamber, I have no idea, but I, for one, am really starting to look forward to this game.

Not really sure if attaching a dark and moody premade campaign world to the DCC game was a right move. The game has a look and feel too it that does draw interest but pairing it with an assumed campaign world doesn't match well with the traditions of the OSR. That said, traditions be damned, but it's starting to look less and less interesting to me personally.

@DethandWhat traditions of the OSR? There aren't any traditions in the OSR. And if there are assumptions as to how a game should look like in the OSR, then these assumptions are merely there to be discarded.Warhammer Fantasy is old school as hell and has a campaign-setting. RuneQuest has its Glorantha–and it gets hardly more old school than that.

As far as I know, DCCRPG doesn't come with any kind of campaign setting. There will be a series of adventures (since that's what Goodman is primarily known for) and I'm sure they'll eventually wind up loosely coupled to either a new version of Aereth or some new "Appendix N" generic world, but AFAIK the RPG itself is just rules.

Certainly the rules and artwork set a particular tone, but that's very different from being "stapled" or even "paperclipped" to a setting.

"Certainly the rules and artwork set a particular tone, but that's very different from being "stapled" or even "paperclipped" to a setting."

And that alone can help shape the tone and setting of the game no matter how it's attached. =)

There is something to be said for giving a game a distinct feel and direction. There is also something to be said for a game purporting Appendix N as it's primary inspiration taking on aspects of a 'doom and gloom' RPG before it's released.

What I'm seeing is that the DCC RPG is taking a life of it's own and if they using Appendix N as the selling point I'd better be able to run a campaign based on Poul Anderson's Three Hearts, Three Lions as easily as I could one based on Karl Edward Wagner's Kane novels.

Follow Grognardia

Grognardia Games, Dwimmermount, the Grognardia logo, and the Dwimmermount logo are trademarks of James Maliszewski. Tékumel is a trademark of M.A.R. Barker and is used with permission of the Tékumel Foundation. For additional information, please visit www.tekumelfoundation.org